Who Are You and Why Are You Here?

It seems like every time I’m at a party, the same conversation plays out. Somebody asks our era’s defining question, “What do you do?” I tell them I do brand strategy. They inevitably respond with one of three variations on the same theme. “Ah, branding. Where I work, we could really use that, have been talking about doing that, or just went through that—new logo, new tagline, new colors, the whole nine yards. It must be so interesting to do that for a living.”

Well, yes and no. Yes, brand strategy is deeply engaging because it can be incredibly transformational. But no, brand strategy isn’t driven by new logos, taglines, or color schemes. They’re often byproducts of a plan goes far deeper, into the soul of the organization. Sound brand strategy should answer Jean Paul Sartre’s defining questions: “Who are we and why are we here?”

If your organization has been around for awhile, you know the answers to these root questions can become blurred or inaccurate over time. As client needs evolve, as new players and funding sources emerge, as donor interests shift, and leaders impart their personal stamp—mission drift happens.

Many agencies try to combat this with strategic planning or a mission statement tune-up. But you can’t build a solid plan on a shaky foundation. And mission statement rewrites, too often, amount to wordsmithing exercises. The most coherent and actionable plans—and, ultimately, the most successful organizations—are built on the bedrock of a crystal-clear brand identity.

The executives, management, staff, and board members of these focused organizations can each give roughly the same elevator speech about the organization’s reason for being, its target market, its value proposition, and how it differs from competing service providers. What’s more, even absent the speech, you could infer most of this from their internal communications, hiring and training practices, website, publications, and marketing materials. Most importantly, in your eyewitness experience with the organization, you would notice a sense of clarity derived from unified purpose and practice—think Starbucks.

In contrast, consider Holiday Inn, a once-dominant player in the hotel chain industry that, today, suffers from a brand identity that’s both fuzzy and outdated. This manifests itself in unfocused marketing messages, inconsistent service quality, and unspectacular business results.

So how does your agency achieve the clarity of a Starbucks, so you don’t turn into a Holiday Inn?

In fall 2003, the Alliance for Children and Families was interested in developing an improved brand strategy. President and CEO Peter Goldberg and Senior Vice President and COO Susan Dreyfus contacted me about helping the organization better define its brand, in order to deepen its relationship with current members, attract new members, and generally grow the organization.

At the time, the Alliance lacked a relevant and compelling identity as a member-services organization. The solution was to develop a more member-facing brand identity and value proposition. Thanks to the Alliance team’s exceptional execution of the brand strategy, it has steadily attracted new members, and, within two years, a quarter-million-dollar surplus had been established.

This has enabled the organization to make investments that will further strengthen its member value proposition, fueling a virtuous cycle of brand-building.

Besides excellent execution, what made this brand strategy successful? More than anything, the key was its source. It wasn’t developed at a leadership off-site event. It wasn’t based on speculation about what would “sell.” Instead, it was derived from insights gleaned from current members—specific members who exemplified the kind of relationship the Alliance sought to retain and attract. To use a current business phrase, it was customer-centric.

Understanding in a deep, nuanced, prioritized way what these members valued most about the membership allowed the Alliance to build a brand identity and a value proposition around attributes that would resonate with agencies like them. Equally important, it allowed the Alliance to focus on delivering on these most-valued attributes (or, as marketers would say, delivering on this “brand promise”) more consistently.

Additionally, it allowed the organization to drop or curtail less-valued offerings, so it could pour more resources into expanding the member services that mattered most.

Long story short, the Alliance is a poster child for the power of sound brand strategy.

Anne Curley is president of Curley Communication, which specializes in brand clarification and related strategic planning. Before establishing her consulting practice in 2000, she headed worldwide communication for SC Johnson. Earlier in her career, she served as the business editor of the Milwaukee Journal. Over the past 20 years, she has served on a dozen nonprofit and corporate boards of directors. She can be reached by e-mail.

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